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The Museum’s Collections document the fate of Holocaust victims, survivors, rescuers, liberators, and others through artifacts, documents, photos, films, books, personal stories, and more. Search below to view digital records and find material that you can access at our library and at the Shapell Center.

The Fred Roberts Crawford Witness to the Holocaust Project coordinated and conducted the interview with Richard Schley. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum received the tapes of the interview from Emory University.

Also in Oral history interviews of The Fred Roberts Crawford Witness to the Holocaust Project

Harry F. Allen, born on January 10, 1916, describes serving in World War II from March of 1942 until April of 1946; graduating from Officer's Candidate School and being assigned to the combat engineers; training in Mississippi; being stationed in England before landing in Europe; being part of the first, third, and seventh armies; entering Dachau concentration camp; the guards surrendering immediately; being told about the camp before arriving there; conditions in the camp and speaking with the surviving inmates; taking pictures in the camp; his reaction to the camp as a Christian; and his thoughts on Germans.

Dr. Morris Parloff, born on October 29, 1918, describes being part of the T-Force during World War II; his job to perform arrests and gather documents in Europe; his group of around 45 men; his first mission in 1944 in Aachen, Germany, where he screened people; learning of the V-2 and being eager to locate it; going to Nordhausen to investigate the V-2 and discovering the concentration camp; being eager to speak with European Jews; training at Camp Ritchie in Maryland; interrogating German civilians; his interactions with a German Jewish man, who provided him information and had also been an informant for the Gestapo earlier in the war; his views on the man’s collaboration and survival strategy; hearing rumors about concentration camps; going to Leipzig, Germany briefly; entering the camp at Nordhausen, which had already been liberated; being given a tour of the camp and seeing the crematorium; his experience being Jewish in the military; his views on the SS and the Nazis; never returning to Germany nor Europe; his children; his thoughts on the prevention of another Holocaust; returning after the war; and further details on his experiences during the war.

Richard Schifter, born in Vienna, Austria in 1923, describes his parents being in Lublin, Poland in the early 1940s and living in the ghetto; his immigration to the United States from Vienna in December 1938 when he was 15 years old; his parents’ failed attempts to emigrate from Vienna; finishing college and joining the US Army; being in the T-Force in the 12th Army Group; training to an interrogator at Camp Ritchie in Maryland; going to England in June 1944; arriving at Omaha Beach (Normandy, France) in August 1944; being part of the 1st Infantry Division when they took Aachen, Germany in October 1944; remaining in Aachen for the winter of 1944-1945 and living in a townhouse with his group; interrogating the civilian population and his views of the Germans in Aachen; his interactions with the German military; finding the concentration camp Nordhausen; speaking Yiddish to the inmates; the inmates’ discomfort living amongst perpetrators; the crematoriums; only seeing male inmates; being involved with the United States Holocaust Memorial Council; not experimenting antisemitism while he was in the army; his views on Judaism and Israel; his political views being shaped by his early life; learning Yiddish in New York, NY; the Jewish experience and the sources of the Holocaust; the genocide of Jews, Romanies, and Armenians; speaking with former Dora inmates during the war; and his interactions with former inmates.
[Note that the recording is damaged in part 2 from minute 8:25 to minute 21:00.]

Learn about over 1,000 camps and ghettos in Volume I and II of this encyclopedia, which are available as a free PDF download. This reference provides text, photographs, charts, maps, and extensive indexes.